"New York Day Women"--Edwidge Danticat (from KRIK? KRAK!)

As the cab races away from the park, it occurs to me that perhaps I would chase an old woman down a street by mistake and that old woman would be somebody else's mother, who I would have mistaken for mine.

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Day women come out when nobody expects them.

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Tonight on the subway, I will get up and give my seat to a pregnant woman or a lady about Ma's age.

My mother, who stuffs thimbles in her mouth and then blows up her cheeks like Dizzy Gillespie while sewing yet another Raggedy Ann doll that she names Suzette after me.

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I will have all these little Suzettes in case you never have any babies, which looks more and more like it is going to happen.

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My mother, who had me when she was thirty-three--l'age du Christ--at the age that Christ died on the cross.

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That's a blessing, believe you me, even if American doctors say by that time you can make retarded babies.

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My mother, who sews lace collars on my company softball T-shirts when she does my laundry.

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Why, you can't you look like a lady playing softball?

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My mother, who never went to any of my Parent-Teacher Association meetings when I was in school.

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You're so good anyway. What are they going to tell me? I don't want to make you ashamed of this day woman. Shame is heavier than a hundred bags of salt.